Sean Payton, Saints Coach, Updates Health Status Amid Coronavirus Diagnosis

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton revealed some good news concerning his coronavirus diagnosis. Payton was recently on WWL 870 AM/105.3 FM and revealed he's been cleared after testing positive for COVID-19. The doctors cleared him on Tuesday and he explained how his symptoms started.

"Basically a weekend ago ... is when I first began to feel some flu-like symptoms, where you get kind of the chills," Payton said via USA Today. "Then Monday morning, they were certainly a little bit more significant. I had a low-grade fever, but the chills were back. That's when I had my test, on Monday." Payton also said the journey was "quite a process. You spend a lot of time trying to learn as much as you can about it. We're certainly seeing it on the news 24/7."

Payton said he didn't get the test results back until Thursday and then went public with the news. The Super Bowl-winning head coach stressed to the listeners to practices social distancing in order to stop the spread.

"We try asking nicely, and we try saying 'hey look, this is the deal,' and then you still see behavior that makes you upset," Payton said. "Just picture everyone's got a hand grenade on them, how about that? So stay away from everybody."

Payton continued: "The thing that's troubling is, it's so contagious that it's going to find the people that aren't healthy enough to defend themselves against it. You and I talked about your father, our parents, our aunts and uncles, those people – anybody with comorbidities that has an existing or preexisting condition. And you don't have to be in your 80s to have one of those... Anybody that has preexisting conditions becomes a greater risk, obviously. And we've seen younger people.

"The reason it applies to everybody is because everybody can get it."

Payton has been the head coach of the Saints since 2006 and has had his share of success. Along with winning the Super Bowl in 2009, Payton has won 131 regular season games, which is the most in franchise history. He has led the Saints to six NFC South titles, including three in the last three seasons. Last year, the Saints finished the season with a 13-3 record, but lost to the Minnesota Vikings in the wild-card round of the playoffs.